So you’re ready to start a marketing e-mail campaign. Before you start creating content and a list of recipients, you need to make a big decision on how you’re sending your content: e-mail blast or e-mail drip?

E-mail Blasts Versus E-mail Drips

Most content for lawyers’ websites will lend itself to being sent as an e-mail blast. This is a scheduled, recurring e-mail like a newsletter that collects the best of your articles, blogs, and features. When you establish a blast marketing e-mail campaign that shares useful content you’ll be able to build readership and maintain client contacts by becoming a regular feature in their inbox.

E-mail drips are a little different, but they still accomplish the same goal of improving client relationships. Drips are most useful during the contact phase of your client relationship. Once they fill out your online contact form, their e-mail address should be added to your drip campaign so they don’t become a one-time contact.

Setting Up Your Marketing E-mail Campaign

You’ll want to choose the e-mail blast campaign if you’re looking to keep existing clients in the loop with the latest about your area of law and your law firm. As long as you’re generating enough content, lawyers who run a monthly eNewsletter blast don’t have to do much more than pick a mailing service and gather an e-mail list.

Most e-mail services have pre-built templates to accommodate your content, and they’ll help you manage your e-mail address lists with subscribe and unsubscribe features. While most of your subscribers will come from your contact forms, some services have link buttons you can add to your website to allow viewers to subscribe right there on your page.

E-mail drips are a bit more involved, but when done right, they can be an extremely powerful tool for gaining new clients. You will need to develop content for several e-mails and then determine a timeframe for sending out specific messages. Here’s an example of how a basic e-mail drip campaign works:

Client fills out contact form.

Your office responds (either an automated thank you with promise that someone will contact them shortly or a direct response from your office).

If the client continues discussions with your office, skip to step 4.

If the client does not respond, send a follow-up e-mail within one to two weeks reminding them of your services and how they can contact you for more help.

If the client does not respond to the follow-up e-mail, send a final reminder about a month from the initial contact.

Add the client to your regular e-mail blast list.

The e-mail drip gets its name from the staggered nature of the e-mails. You want to be quick with your initial response, but then give them some time between communications. You don’t want to seem pushy – especially in sensitive cases such as wrongful death or divorce. The clients looking for your services are often going through a difficult time and they don’t need attorneys constantly bombarding them with e-mails.

It’s also important to only add clients to your blast list if they have responded to your marketing e-mail campaign. If they do not interact with your office beyond that initial contact form, it’s best to just let their e-mail address drop off the campaign. Remember – always have an opt-out and unsubscribe method in place to ensure you’re not spamming clients with unwanted e-mails!

If you’re interested in an e-mail campaign but just don’t know where to start, let We Do Web Content lend a hand! We do it all – from creating content for lawyers looking to impress their readers to getting that content in front of potential clients. Fill out our contact form (and if you start a relationship with us, join our mailing list!) or give us a call at 888-521-3880.